California fires

[william the wierd]

Unless something strange happens insurance and mortgage companies will be raising rates nationwide when the smoke clears in Sept. or Oct. What effect on the presidential race do you expect?

[Blueneck]

When was the last time California wasn't on fire?

[cronic]

What effect on the presidential race do you expect?

huh?
from the California fires?..
do you expect anything changing in the presidential race due to the cali fires?
:ponder:

[cronic]

& btw.. welcome William..
good to have you here on the forum..

You also Blueneck..& very good question you asked..lol

[DamnYankee]

Arnold is asking for federal troops to fight the fires.

[william the wierd]

Higher mortgage and casualty insurance rates will not just deflate the housing bubble a bit more but given the increasing number of home equity loans and worse yet reverse mortgages there is the likelihood of a huge financial blackhole. Many homes will not be replaced or rebuilt since lot sale and relocation to Arkansas is a better deal for the retirees. The line of credit borrowers will no longer be able to afford to live in California. That will reduce home values for existing homes too turning more people upside down with more walkaways or raiding of 401-ks and IRAs to stay housed. That would be bad.

[cronic]

Higher mortgage and casualty insurance rates will not just deflate the housing bubble a bit more but given the increasing number of home equity loans and worse yet reverse mortgages there is the likelihood of a huge financial blackhole. Many homes will not be replaced or rebuilt since lot sale and relocation to Arkansas is a better deal for the retirees. The line of credit borrowers will no longer be able to afford to live in California. That will reduce home values for existing homes too turning more people upside down with more walkaways or raiding of 401-ks and IRAs to stay housed. That would be bad.

Maybe them folks should come live in Ohio then.. it can't get much "poorer" any where else.. maybe where them Hillbillies live.. Kentucky isn't it?

[william the wierd]

Maybe them folks should come live in Ohio then.. it can't get much "poorer" any where else.. maybe where them Hillbillies live.. Kentucky isn't it?
Very good point but I thought the copper pipes and wiring had been ripped out of the houses?

[cronic]

Very good point but I thought the copper pipes and wiring had been ripped out of the houses?

what hasn't been ripped out, has decayed from sulfer water or been burnt down from pyromanic firestarters.
still you will find an occasional few..

those are the rich people round here

[william the wierd]

what hasn't been ripped out, has decayed from sulfer water or been burnt down from pyromanic firestarters.
still you will find an occasional few..

those are the rich people round here
What I don't know about Ohio would fill volumes. I will take your word for it.

[william the wierd]

When was the last time California wasn't on fire? March or April. But there are several forces at work here:
Construction costs keep going up.
Insurance coverage keeps going down and rates up as the insurance companies try to exit Cali before the big one hits.
Credit of all sorts is being rationed by better risk analysis rather than just interest rates.
Savings and net worth are below zero for California as a whole and headed lower.
State, local and federal reserves and borrowing capacity are going down due to the weak dollar.


Therefore a supersized Katrina is quite likely

[Elrathin]

The fires are real bad this year though. I live in Fernley, NV and we have been getting the smoke all the way out here pretty heavily. In previous years it wasn't that bad.

It is clear this morning though so that is a good sign unless the winds just shifted and it is not affecting Fernley this morning I don't know.

[william the wierd]

The fires are real bad this year though. I live in Fernley, NV and we have been getting the smoke all the way out here pretty heavily. In previous years it wasn't that bad.

It is clear this morning though so that is a good sign unless the winds just shifted and it is not affecting Fernley this morning I don't know. The fires are more extensive this year. However the problems of Nevada: loss of customer base/overbuilding and lack of water; are likely to be amplified by the big fire year. I would wait until foreclosures start ending up in tax sales before investing mainly to see what happens to plane flights and the CA/AZ non-flight customer base. Once flight starts shrinking CA's portion of the population base for the US it will take a while before it hits bottom and that will affect Nevada.

The fires are just speeding up and amplifying existing trends but that may prevent a soft landing. A lot of the problems in the US economy of the late 60s to about 1980 had to do with NY shedding population share and even population but there was no accelerent such as these fires. Other than the St. Lawrence Seaway bypassing the Erie canal in 1959 no real economic problems existed in New York. California is more subject to fire, earthquake, tsunami and even tropical storms than was thought true even 30 years ago. Similar reality checks will kick in for Texas when it overtakes CA as the most populous state but CA moving to number two may turn out to be the worst passing of the baton in US history.

[Blueneck]

I lived in Mt. Shasta, CA in '87 during the Silver Lake (and many other) fires that lasted in total almost 6 months.

They were started by dry lightning, just as many of the ones burning right now were.

One thing I noticed back then that seemed counter-productive to me was that large groups of firefighters were dispatched immediately to save "structures" before all else. The result was the smaller fires in unihabited placed joined together to become big fires that burned for months.

I would imagine, although I haven't lived in CA for many years is that this problem has probably gotten worse with development. Much of CA is desert or high desert and if you are going to build a house somewhere prone to fires, you should probably expect your house to get burnt down at some point.

And maybe they should just start building all the new prisons in areas where there is a high risk of fire, so they can have a readily available force to fight them. The CA prison industry probably makes good money farming these guys out for this purpose as it is. Why not save a little of the taxpayers money on transportation costs? :)

[william the wierd]

I can understand someone like Mike from the other board who lives where Earthquake but not fire is a big risk. Hurricanes you can see coming at you and while we do get fires when we don't get hurricanes most forms of fireproofing protect against winds too and vice versa. but Earthquake and either fire or hurricanes really ramps up the deathrate because every protection against one threat increases the risk from the other.